On her evolution personally and musically: “People get told that it’s a bad thing to change. Like, people will say, ‘You’ve changed.’ And that’s supposed to be derogatory. But you are supposed to change all the time… People have known me since I was so young, they think they know me. I heard so many comments like, ‘We just want Miley back.’ But you can’t tell me who that is. I’m right here.”

On her ‘shocking’ behavior: “People were so shocked by some of the things that I did. It should be more shocking that when I was 11 or 12, I was put in full hair and makeup, a wig, and told what to wear by a group of mostly older men. I didn’t want to become any sort of man hater because I love all humans; I am a humanitarian. Beyoncé said, ‘Girls run the world,’ and that was an important thing to say because I think subconsciously we are beaten down to believe that it isn’t true our whole lives. It’s no wonder that a lot of people lose their way and lose who they really are because they always have people telling them who to be.”

On being a role model: “I think I show people that they can be themselves. I also think something that has been important for me, in this next little, like, transition phase of my career is that I don’t give a f—k about being cool. I just want to be myself.”

On trans rights and gender identity: “When I started speaking up on trans rights, I spent hours on the phone every day talking to experts, so I was able to speak about it from a knowledgeable place. I think my connection with trans people is: You should be able to change and be who you are at any time. Like, you should not be glued to gender, to age, to race; those things should not define you. We are born as a blank canvas, and your job on this planet is to take the time to paint it the way you want, and you can f—ing scrape it off and start over again as many times as you want.”

On her decision to stop smoking pot: “Just for now. To quote the wise Justin Bieber, ‘Never say never.’ But right now I want to be clear.”